Justice Department secretly collected AP reporters' phone records

Okay, now Erik Holder has pissed off both the left and the right! NPR reports,

The Associated Press is protesting what it calls a massive and unprecedented intrusion into its gathering of news. The target of that wrath is the U.S. Justice Department, which secretly collected phone records for several AP reporters last year.

What are the rules the Justice Department must follow?

For starters, the attorney general himself needs to sign off on a subpoena to a reporter. And prosecutors must demonstrate that they made every effort to get the information in other ways before even turning to the press.

"They were put into place after Watergate, when everyone was very alarmed by the abuses and excesses of the Nixon Justice Department in subpoenaing reporters and trying to get information about their sources and activities," he says.

Three years ago, the Justice Department's inspector general found evidence that the FBI was getting phone records from The Washington Post and The New York Times in the Bush administration without following those guidelines.

Now lawmakers from both political parties are asking the Obama administration tough questions.

This Justice Department will have a chance to explain itself later this week when Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill.